Archives

Categories

Testimonies of the Bloggernacle

A friend asked whether I was aware of any good collections of testimony or “Why I Believe”-type posts in the Bloggernacle. Nothing really sprung to mind, so I thought I’d issue a call for people to share their favorites here. I’ll compile a running bullet-point list below of the suggestions.

I also remember very well a comment that J. Stapley once made in response to a “Why I Stay” post — it was just a couple lines, but it resonated with me at the time and so I still remember it:

“I have written elsewhere that one of the fundemental aspects of the Mormon narrative is to remain, to stay when others walk away. It has been that way from the beginning, though the details have changed.

I stay because there I have had some experiences that I feel are real and these experiences affirm my faith in Jesus Christ and a belief in the restored gospel. The restored gospel is beautiful.”

MormonScholarsTestify.org is a great new website (an initiative of Daniel Peterson, Scott Gordon, and Tanya Spackman) with new testimonies coming up almost daily. It has a WordPress backbone but the site looks like a regular web site. I don’t know if all the scholars there participate in the Bloggernacle, but I do recognize many of them from here and there online.

Although it won’t give Marc another bullet point for his OP, may I please put in a word for the many of us who may not have borne a standard “I know the Church is true” testimony, who nevertheless bear testimony in idiosyncratic ways? I may have spoken directly of parts of my testimony in only three or four posts, but my entire blog stands as my testimony, from the posts where I bear other people’s witness through reporting their lives on down to the seemingly silly advertisements and puzzles that point to the lighter side of who we have been as a people. I think no one could read Keepa very consistently without recognizing that a seldom-directly-voiced testimony is the common thread.

I think that without any effort I could name two dozen commenters and bloggers for whom the same is true.

Just wanted to put that out there. Don’t want anybody thinking the ‘nacle can boast only the handful of testimonies bulleted above.

Ardis – Most definitely. Never meant to suggest that this would be anything more than a sampling of the goods available in the bloggernacle. Clearly, we’re missing much by overlooking all the stellar comments that get thrown around week in and week out.

John C. – Your first few aren’t quite what I had in mind for this post, so I won’t be linking to them above. Thanks for the last two though.

I just read through a few of these testimonies. I just wanted to say I am thankful for all you people here. You are a remarkable group, and you buoy me up and inspire and entertain and sustain me sometimes. I rarely comment, but wanted to thank you all for sharing what you do on these blogs.

.Mine from 2005.
.
I reverently stand by every word and gratefully report joys I hadn’t imagined then.
.I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell. – 2 Nephi 33:6

Cough – note to Marc, in a post where you encourage folks to post links, check the Akismet filter every so often. :)

I just freed three or four comments. Sorry, commenters, if our spam filter thought you were a spammer. You’re free now.

(Weirdly enough, mixed in with the usual spam for porn, gambling, and drugs, we got spam comments for among other things a crane repair site. Crane repair. Who knew?)

Marc Bohn on February 4, 2010 at 11:41 am

Thanks Kaimi and sorry anyone who got filtered. I think I’ve updated the list to reflect everything shared up to this point.

G. B. Hatch on February 6, 2010 at 1:56 am

It is so wonderful to see testaments of faith being spread throughout the world by way of the internet. Bless these writers for seeking to shed truth and light on a medium that is so clogged with false doctrine. What worries me, though, is to see our doctrines cast like pearls before swine on sites by people who have left the church. Isn’t there anything the church can do to keep our doctrines, such as the temple ceremony, from being published for the world to see? [] Can anyone stop this?